Intellectual humility sets our spirits free from worries that unfold

Aristotle said it is the mark of an educated mind to entertain an idea without accepting it.

This is the habit of what psychologists call intellectual humility. It’s the awareness of our own cognitive shortcomings. Recent research has shown this trait is correlated with improved wellbeing, stronger relationships, lower stress and greater resilience.

Here’s a quote a from a study in a positive psychology journal that resonated with me.

Intellectual humility helps frees people from their egotistical concerns about their correctness and thereby allows them to spend greater energy engaged in exploration and learning without being mentally burdened with concerns about being wrong or not measuring up intellectually. Those with higher levels of intellectual humility tended to have lower levels of affective polarization.

Seems like a no brainer to me.

Sadly, the core challenge with this habit is, society disincentivizes it. We have been culturally conditioned to believe that the people who are unsure about their beliefs are weak, incompetent and unstable. Such individuals are setting themselves up to be taken advantage of and bulldozed in conversation.

Whereas the loud, arrogant, decisive, assertive, extroverted blabber mouths who claim to know it all, are paid the most attention to.

This is what happens in a hyper competitive, instant gratification culture of confirmation bias, social pressure and identity politics. Unwavering confidence is the surefire path to earn recognition and success. Humility might be appreciated in theory, but it’s certainly not rewarded in practice.

I recall giving a speech at a business conference years ago, and the speaker who followed me was a local politician. We fist bumped as he approached the stage, and I walked to back of the room to enjoy his presentation.

After ten minutes, I remember thinking to myself, wow, I disagree with virtually everything this guy is saying, but I do recognize that he makes sound points. We don’t see eye to eye on several topics, but I still have great respect for him. In fact, look around at all these smiling, nodding heads in the audience. These are his people. This is his constituency. No wonder he’s up for reelection. Maybe he’s onto something.

When was the last time that happened to you? What moments of intellectual humility stand out in your life?

It’s tricky, because writing people off is deeply satisfying. It reinforces our sense of superiority to decide that someone is not worth paying further attention, or not good enough to be successful.

We relish hearing someone’s wackadoo ideas and then thinking to ourselves, welp, I’m done with that guy. I’m bone weary trying to understand his bullshit, time to move on.

What’s interesting is, the literature on intellectual humility reveals that human beings will often internalize those moments. When someone disagrees with ideas that are meaningful to us, it feels as though we’re being attacked. We feel threatened and insignificant when other people disagree with us on topics that are close to our heart.

And so, we jump from, this person is saying something that is factually incorrect, to, this person is stupid and trying to destroy me, and they can’t teach me anything because I’m smarter, so screw them.

Sound familiar?

If we want to practice real intellectual humility, then we need an intervention. We have to interrupt our pattern and welcome different ways of thinking.

Where did you get your humility training?